In today's classrooms, many children are exposed to different types of technology, even at the elementary school age. Students are able to access a wide variety of information with the swift click of a button. Since we live in such an advanced digital age, we are surrounded by arguments daily, and it can be difficult to determine information found on the Internet to be fact or fiction. Children are also being flooded with a massive amount of information daily. It is important that students are taught how to distinguish between credible and untrustworthy sources they could encounter in the digital world. As educators, we need to think of literacy or being literate not only as reading and writing in the traditional sense, but also what being literate looks like in the digital sense.
Kristen Turner and Troy Hicks (2017) state, " We are inundated by information-and opinions and misinformation-on our devices, and our students face the same challenges" ( p.6). This is a very important statement that I relate to even as a kindergarten teacher. While my students are much too young to have Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat, they are very familiar with these social media platforms. There have been many times I have heard conversations between students discussing something their parents had showed them on one of the aforementioned social media platforms. Even at a young age, these students are still trying to distinguish between fact and fiction. It is more difficult for them to sort through digital media and analyze what they are reading. This is why it is important for parents and educators to work together to teach students about digital media. According to Eileen Belastock (2019), "So early as kindergarten, digital literacy skills should be embedded in the everyday curriculum and instruction." Many would disagree that children already spend too much time on devices and not enough time in face to face interactions. However, it is important for us to develop digital literacy skills at a young age in order for them to become more responsible and aware of misinformation online as they get older.
Along with teaching digital literacy, it is important that we teach our students how to craft digital arguments. Students are being exposed to digital arguments daily, whether it is from the local news outlet or one of their favorite video games. "More and more often, our daily lives exists within digital spaces" (Turner & Hicks, 2017, p. 17). We are constructing arguments on a daily basis whether we realize it or not. Facebook posts, Twitter feeds, even pictures on Snapchat, send a message to the reader of the post or thread. Within the scope of the tons of friends on that particular social media platform, someone out their is analyzing what is being posted and constructing their own views or arguments of the posts. Being able to construct arguments whether they be face to face or in the digital sense, requires students to utilize their critical thinking skills in order to construct a viable argument. The utilization of such skills is not just crucial for the mastery of the College and Career Ready Standards but is rather a life long skill they can utilize throughout their lifetime, no matter where their career path takes them.
References
Belastock, E. (2019, Feb. 20). How to teach digital literacy skills at the right time. Edscoop.
Retrieved from https://edscoop.com/how-to-teach-digital-literacy-skills-at-the-right-time/
TEDx Talks. (2013, Feb. 19). Creating critical thinkers through media literacy. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHAApvHZ6XE
Turner, K., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Webwise.ie. Digital literacy competencies. Retrieved from https://www.webwise.ie/teachers/digital _literacy/
